Promise of Blood

He saw sorrow in those eyes. A lonely, sad girl. The eyes of a child who’d made a horrible mistake. It made him furious. He stood, his chair thrown to the ground behind him.

“Sir!” Olem barked.

“What?” Tamas practically yelled at the man.

“Not the time or place, sir!”

Tamas felt his jaw working soundlessly. I did tell him to stop me.

The door to the office burst open. Taniel stumbled in, breathing hard as if he’d run up all five flights of stairs. He stopped in the doorway, frozen in place at the sight of Vlora.

Vlora stood. “Taniel.”

“What is it?” Tamas said, the calm in his voice forced.

“General Westeven is in league with the Privileged.”

“Westeven is in Novi on holiday. I made sure of it before the coup.”

“He returned yesterday. I’ve just come from his home. It’s guarded by at least two dozen Hielmen. We tracked the Privileged there but couldn’t force our way inside. She is a guest of his.”

“He has to be out of the city. They may just be using his house as a base of operations.”

Taniel strode into the room, stopped beside Vlora, his eyes on his father. “If Westeven is in the city, he’ll move quickly. He could strike at any time.”

Tamas leaned back, taking in the information. General Westeven, the longtime retired captain of the Hielmen, was a legend. The man commanded respect from noble and commoner alike and had won battles across half the world. He was one of the few military men, foreign or domestic, that Tamas truly saw as an equal. And he was a king’s man through and through.

Tamas slid his dueling-pistols case across the desk to rest in front of him and began to load one. “Olem, eject anyone from this building that isn’t a member of the seventh brigade. Once the House of Nobles is secure, we’ll see about those barricades. General Westeven may be behind them.”

Olem left the room at a run.

The rest followed Tamas out into the hallway and down the stairs. Olem met them again on the second floor. The place was packed with people—city folk, peasants, poor merchants. It seemed like half the city filled the hallways. Olem had to push his way through to get to Tamas.

“Sir,” Olem said, “There are too many people in the building. It’ll take us hours to clear all the rooms.”

Tamas scowled. “Who are all these people?” A line had formed, and Tamas couldn’t see the front of it. He grabbed the closest man, an ironworker, by his thick overalls with the hammer stitched to one pocket. “What are you here for?”

The man trembled slightly. “Um, sorry, sir, I’m here to debate my new taxes.” He spread his hand toward the line. “We all are.”

“New taxes haven’t been issued,” Tamas said.

“For the king!”

A gunshot went off near Tamas’s ear and the man slumped to the ground before he’d been able to draw his dagger halfway. Vlora immediately began reloading her pistol. On Tamas’s other side, Taniel had drawn both of his.

The entire hall burst into motion. Cloaks and coats were discarded, and from beneath them weapons were drawn—swords, daggers, pistols—a few even had muskets. What had a moment before been an aimless line of city folk and commoners became an armed mob.

They fell on Tamas’s soldiers with the same shout: “For the king!”

Olem flung himself between the greater part of the crowd and Tamas. He fired a pistol and then drew his sword, cutting down three of the royalists in as many blinks of the eye. Tamas yanked his sword out and bellowed, “To me! Men of the seventh brigade, to me!”

Soldiers caught unawares were cut down. The hall was too crowded with the royalists, their trap sprung. But they weren’t expecting three powder mages or Olem’s trained ferocity.

“Back to the stairs, sir,” Olem yelled. “Up to the next floor!”

They cut their way toward the stairs in a fighting retreat. The royalists attacked en masse, trying to gain the advantage through numbers. Tamas stepped up beside Olem to hold them back while Vlora and Taniel fired their pistols from behind them. The staircase was soon full of the thick smoke from spent powder. Tamas breathed it in and savored it.

Gray-and-white uniforms emerged from the hall. Hielmen—what was left of Manhouch’s personal guard. There were twelve of them. They carried the best air rifles with bayonets fixed and charged forward without hesitation. These were not simple royalists. They were trained killers, notches even above Tamas’s best soldiers. They would not waver or retreat until they were dead.

The Hielmen carried air rifles, but the rest of the rabble did not. Tamas felt Vlora ignite a powder horn, and a man nearest the Hielmen exploded, showering the lot of them with gore and knocking two flat. Tamas reached out with his senses and ignited the powder in a man’s unshot musket. The unexpected blast blew the face off the woman next to him.